


Things that come with time

by KatKo95



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Character Study, Courtship, F/M, First Kiss, I Will Go Down With This Ship, Movie 2: Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald Spoilers, Post-Movie 2: Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-18
Updated: 2018-12-18
Packaged: 2019-09-22 11:51:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17059274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KatKo95/pseuds/KatKo95
Summary: And suddenly, hazily at the very edge of his increasingly foggy mind is Tina, of course it’s Tina.(Newt and Tina and how happiness can be found, even on the verge of war)





	Things that come with time

**Author's Note:**

> Well, here goes nothing...I guess?  
> Please keep your feedback kind, english is not my first language and this uploading tool is driving me SO mad ;)
> 
> Please enjoy!:)

_Hogwarts_

Afterwards, he finds himself in Dumbledore’s office, the Niffler happily busying himself between his feet, interest sparked by the numerous glittering instruments, rattling and clinking and clanking on almost every available surface around the room.  
“Drop that, will you?” Newt demands, though he’s too tired to put any edge to his words and swoops down to pry a brass cogwheel from his greedy little paws “Come on, _now_.”  
“Ah, please, let him have it.” Dumbledore says indulgently, a tray holding two cups, a steaming tea pot and a plate of raisin-studded scones preceding him, as he sits in the chair opposite of Newt  
“He deserves a little something, after helping us along so marvellously, wouldn’t you think?”  
He sits up quickly, letting go of the cogwheel and the Niffler stores it in his pouch, looking rather pleased with himself and this turn of events.  
Newt feels oddly misplaced, as if he had grown too big to still belong here; which he thinks to be part of the effect being at your old school would presumably have on almost anyone.  
And still, it seems to him almost like he sat in this exact chair just yesterday, in the dead of the night, after the events that had eventually led to his expulsion, though Dumbledore’s expression hadn’t been so kind back then. Fitting, really, that he would revisit this place in a state of utter misery, just as he had left it the last time.

“Yes, about that. “ Newt says, carefully eyeing the amulet levitating between them “Now that you have it, what will you…”  
“Don’t let that be your concern.” The other man says calmly, but in a tone that clearly allows no discussion, then ads “Now, tell me, Newt. How are you?”

Well, he is not sure what he had been expecting, but it certainly wasn’t that.

Newt opens his mouth to speak; only to close it again immediately, thinking of Theseus, who has lost so much in a matter of mere minutes, and of Queenie, who might not be dead, but is still lost to both Jacob and Tina.  
Pickett, in the breast pocket of his overcoat, stirs and he can’t help but think of how incredibly, obscenely _lucky_ he must’ve been to come out all of this relatively unscathed.  
Still, Leta is dead and Queenie and Credence are gone to do Grindelwald’s bidding and he is just so tired he can feel it down to his very bones, so his supposed luck does very little to lift his spirits.

“I’ve been better.” He replies, finally, avoiding Dumbledore’s eyes and watches his cup stir itself instead “Compared to Theseus, though, I have very little right to complain, I suppose.”  
“I truly am so sorry for Leta, and for the loss both your brother and you have suffered.”  
“If only…” He starts before he can think better of it and then decides, that now, that he’s already started, he might as well just get it all out “If only they would’ve been given more time, it’s all so terribly unjust. They have been waiting to get engaged for the sake of some strange kind of respect to their respective families and society and _Merlin_ knows what else, and then to officially announce their betrothal and then to plan the wedding. They did all this waiting, and in the end they had so little time to truly be together. It’s not fair.”  
Dumbledore regards him with a long, pensive look over the rim of his tea cup, before he says very slowly “Newt, do you know what a curious thing it is, that time does while you’re waiting?” He sets his cup back onto its saucer and then continues upon his opposite’s confused expression “It passes. It passes, and not before long you’ll come to realize that you have barely any left. So in my opinion, waiting is certainly something that we all need to do a lot less of.”

And suddenly, hazily at the very edge of his increasingly foggy mind is Tina, _of course_ it’s Tina, images and flashes of her. 

They’re back at the Blind Pig her lips are painted a deep red and her hair is in soft, glossy waves, the warm lighting of the establishment painting streaks of gold and red into it. 

And, then she’s bidding him goodbye on the docks, a watery smile gracing her features and her eyes are shining bright with happiness, and that’s when he first notices their striking resemblance to those of salamanders, because hers, too, were burning like embers that day; like fire in dark water.

And then Tina _again and again and again_ , and, finally, she’s looking both disbelieving and absolutely delighted to learn that he’s been carrying her picture, and maybe he thinks, a little ruefully, if Leta would’ve been just a minute later, _maybe_ she would’ve let him kiss her and certainly it would’ve been a wonderful thing, an ending to their tentative letters and pleasantly courteous conversations, but a beginning to something else entirely.

The thought of her _does_ help a little to soothe his mind, like the smell of fresh peppermint and menthol to quell an oncoming headache, like ice-cold water to calm his nerves prior to an exam during his school days or a piece of chocolate after yet another unfortunate run-in with a Dementor.

 _I think I’ve truly waited long enough_ ; he thinks tiredly, while rubbing his forehead and is not even a little surprised to find that she would be the one thing on his mind, still shining bright enough to make him yearn for something other than sleep.  
Oddly enough, and slightly inappropriately; he thinks how utterly wonderful it should be right now to be able to put his head in her lap and have her card her fingers through his hair, short, round fingernails gently scratching along his scalp.

“Dreaming, Newt?” Dumbledore asks almost apologetically, head tilted sideways, clinking his spoon against the rim of his cup.  
On the floor, between their feet, the Niffler props himself up on Newts pant leg, sniffing interestedly.  
“Sorry.” He says quickly shaking his head to clear it of a rather vivid image of Tina beaming at him with relieve and disbelieve and something like hope in the darkness of the Lestrange family vault only a few hours ago. “Sorry, really.”  
“Oh, but what on earth for? If someone deserves a rest, it ought to be you.” He leans back in his chair, crosses his arms behind his head “Before, I fear, you’ll have to be very patient, and remember and recount everything that transpired at the rally for me, word for word.”

They finish their tea over a rather lengthy conversation about the occurrences at the cemetery, Newt doing his best to pick his poor brain for the right answers, even though exhaustion is clouding his every sense so badly he can barely remember his own name at times, and to him it all feels a bit like wading through cold molasses, though Dumbledore, at the end, seems to be fairly satisfied by what little and inconclusive information he receives.

Outside, day is slowly inching towards evening, hour by hour, and it’s dark outside already when Newt steps into the familiar hallway leading to Dumbledore’s study to find his companions.  
His footsteps are echoing almost comically loud against the ancient stone floor and he is struck with the sudden desire to make a sharp turn into the deserted corridor to his left, walk past the still life with the ticklish pear and then take refuge in the warm honey coloured hues of his old House’s common room.  
What a truly delightful thing it would be, if he could just crawl into one of the worn chintz chairs in front of the fire place and forget that anything outside this castle even existed, at least for a few hours, but unfortunately, he is not fifteen anymore and the world is right on the verge of yet another war that needs to be stopped or at the very least decelerated and attenuated, so instead he walks faster.  
He goes to collect everyone, Tina and Jacob from exactly where he had last left them, out on the viaduct and he feels a small pang of guilt at the sight of them, sitting on the bare ground in the dark. What a friend he is to keep them waiting out in the cold, while he goes to have a chat and a cup of tea.

(Tina will later tell him in one of her letters _“Don’t you worry about that, in retrospect I am very glad to have had at least a few hours to not do anything at all, before all of this properly started; there is so much work I feel like I’m drowning in it”_ , putting him immensely at ease.)

Theseus is harder to find but eventually turns out to be down in the kitchens, sitting by the light of a single lit paraffin lamp with an untouched glass of whiskey clasped between his hands. The kitchen is empty and Theseus so lost in thought that he only notes Newts presence when he’s barely ten feet away. His eyes are red-rimmed and heavy lidded and there’s a distinct kind of look on his face, like he had been expecting someone else.  
“Theseus.” Newt says, voice barely above a whisper and then puts a hand to his shoulder in a weak attempt to convey some kind of comfort.  
Improving his social skills beyond basic pleasantries had always been something he found rather neglectable, but it’s moments like this that make him almost regret this specific kind of mindset. They share a moment of silence, in which Theseus stares into the amber-coloured liquid swirling inside his glass, as if willing it to speak to him and Newt tries very hard not collapse into a heap of sore muscle and exhaustion. 

Finally, when he trusts his voice enough not to break, he says around the lump that’s been sitting in his throat ever since Père Lachaise “Let’s go home.”

 

 

_New York City_

She doesn’t see him for almost a year, after Paris, and she supposes it’s for the better, as she’s busy processing and rearranging and refitting herself into her everyday life, and then there’s the interviews, anyways, and they’re keeping her occupied enough.  
Quite honestly, they’re interrogations, but interview just happens to be the nicer term.

They send an international delegation to investigate the happenings at Père Lachaise, and everyone who was involved in any way has to report for a scheduled questioning, consisting of a jarring series of increasingly tiring inquiries.  
She wouldn’t mind those; she understands how important it must be for the officials to get the full picture; that is, if they weren’t so repetitive and if this wasn’t her fourth time going through the exact same procedure.  
Tina sits and waits, legs crossed at the ankles, fingers folded on top of the simple wooden table in front of her. The mechanical clock above the door is ticking noisily and she finds herself mildly irritated by it, but then again, it does not take much to irritate her these days, especially not after a full day of work and not much to eat.  
The door opens on a drawn-out screech and Tina uncrosses her legs and sits up a little straighter.  
Today’s interviewer is a small, stout wizard with round, beady eyes, slicked back dark hair and a camel-brown pinstripe suit. In a way, he reminds her of Jacob, though he’s got no moustache and his eyes are lacking the kindness.  
The man introduces himself and Tina rises from her chair to shake his hand, but her poor overused brain seems to have trouble piecing the syllables coming from his mouth together.  
There’s a dull, throbbing pain sitting behind her right temple, and that, combined with her interviewers thick foreign accent makes it hard for her to concentrate on anything, other than how badly she’d rather be anywhere else. 

“State your full name and occupation.” Her opposite says rather curtly, expectantly looking up from his parchment.  
_So no pleasantries today, then. Fine._  
She has very little tolerance for those anyway.  
“Porpentina Esther Goldstein, I’m an Auror with Macusa.” She replies mechanically, not quite looking at him.  
“And you have been in Paris to search, apprehend and neutralize the subject known as…Credence Barebone, whose whereabouts are currently unknown, yes?”  
He accentuates his r’s in an awkwardly slurred kind of way, only serving to further her headache.  
“I was in Paris to look for Credence, yes.” She allows patiently “But I certainly did not mean to…”  
“Miss Goldstein. Yes or no.”  
Tina presses her lips together tightly, counts to three and exhales heavily.  
“No.”  
He makes a note, nodding to himself.  
“And how exactly did you come to be at the cemetery Père Lachaise, at a rally held by no one other than Gellert Grindelwald…” She opens her mouth to answer, but he only speaks louder, talking over her “A rally that ended in two deaths, one of which was British ministry official Leta Lestrange.”  
Tina closes her eyes and sees Leta and the look on Queenies face and blue, so much blue everywhere, smells mildew and burnt flesh and feels the ground vibrating beneath her feet and scorching, all-encompassing heat.  
She touches the small fleck of burnt skin on her left wrist, absentmindedly. 

“Miss Goldstein.” She blinks, straightens herself “Why were you at that rally?”  
“I was following Credence.”  
This interviewer seems just as dissatisfied with her answer as the ones before him; he clicks his tongue and crosses some part of his notes out.  
“And you were not…sent by anyone? I’ll have you know, Miss Goldstein, certain individuals seem to have an awfully avid interest in keeping at the heels of both Grindelwald and this Mr. Barebone far from any ways authorized by…”  
“As I have already told three of your colleagues…” Tina says rather tightly, barely supressing the urge to roll her eyes and rubs a hand over her face “I was not sent by Albus Dumbledore. This is ridiculous; I don’t have any sort of affiliations with that man.”  
“And what sort of affiliations do you have with Newt Scamander?”  
She looks up quickly, brows drawing together.

Newt.

_( Soft eyes, crinkling around the edges, calloused finger tips brushing her cheek._  
_A giant azure-blue bird, coiled under the roof of Macy’s warehouse.  
Salamanders.)_

_Newt._

They haven’t asked about him before.  
“None.” She says all too quickly, then amends “Mr.Scamander and I are… distant acquaintances. “  
“Distant acquaintances?” Her opposite repeats mockingly and she knows instantly that she made a mistake “Do you maintain such frequent correspondence with all of your _distant acquaintances_?”  
“You have been reading my letters?” Tina is careful to keep her voice neutral  
_Of course they have._  
“No.” He says, smiling triumphantly “But we have been tracking them and there seem to be an abundance of your letters going to and coming from London.”

He’s quite right; there’s a bunch of letters, envelopes of weather-worn parchment sealed with his initials stamped onto light grey wax, waiting for her at irregular intervals.  
Sometimes, when she’s not home to receive them, she finds them tucked into the window frame or nearly steps onto them after unlocking her front door, sometimes she wakes in the middle of the night to some kind of owl softly hooting outside her bedroom window, some mornings they find their way to her work desk even before she does.

They always start with _Dearest Tina_ in his neat cursive, and end with _please stay safe_ ; the middle part varies between conversational pleasantries _(I think you’ll be fairly glad to hear that the Zouwu is recovering beautifully and, let me tell you, the Niffler and his offspring are still very much raising mayhem at any possibility…)_ , detailed descriptions of the current situation at his corner of the world _(Everything is fairly calm, though it feels a bit, as if we are all waiting with bated breath, like a piece of string pulled tight enough to snap at any given moment or a beast on the hunt ready to spring)_ and more personal declarations _(Tina, I have rarely felt as helpless, as I have today at that wretched public spectacle they dare call a funeral service , having to watch Theseus being forced to showcase his grieve for the whole world to see. Leta wouldn’t have wanted this. No one would want this.)_  
Her letters are more regular, but less comprehensive; they start with _Newt_ and end with _Always, yours sincerely_ , because she is rather unsure about how to manoeuvre around what might or might not be between them.  
If Newt notices her uncertainty, he doesn’t address it, and she is fairly grateful for it.

“Yes, well…” Tina replies, scowling, as she pulls herself out of her reverie “It’s not illegal to send letters is it?”  
“Oh, certainly not.” His voice is dripping with a sort of relish she finds rather despicable “But you are aware, that you are obligated to forward any sort of useful information you might’ve acquired to us, aren’t you? Like whether Mr. Scamander was in Paris on Albus Dumbledore’s order or not.”

She gapes. 

_Why would Newt follow any orders given to him by…well, anyone, really?_

Sure, it had been tremendously important to him to meet with Dumbledore after everything that had transpired, but she figured it must’ve been to deliver the amulet.  
In the aftermath; right now, she is rather frustrated with herself that it never even occurred to her to ask why Newt had been in Paris in the first place, but there had been so little time to do anything other than say their goodbyes afterwards that she didn’t even think of it.

_(She remembers, standing around a rather ugly, chipped flower pot in the transportation offices of the British Ministry of Magic with Jacob at her right, trying to look especially interested in his cufflinks, and Newt opposite of her, eyebrows furrowed and hands nervously twitching at his side, opening his mouth to speak, just as the Portkey set to transport them back to New York started to vibrate with the magical pull of their destination.  
She had startled and then gripped Jacobs elbow, reached for the flower pot and everything had promptly dissolved into a flurry of movement and colour, but she had never wanted to miss a Portkey so badly.)_

Her opposite drums the back of his pen against the table top, missing the steady _tictoc_ of the clock by barely half a second and it drives her positively mad.

“Miss Goldstein.” He sing-songs in a way that infuriatingly reminds her of Abernathy, dumping another stack of paperwork on top of her desk. “Was Mr. Scamander in Paris on Albus Dumbledore’s orders or not?”

She does not like the way he talks to her.  
She does not like the way he’s slouched in his chair, like he owns the place.  
She, simply put, does not like this man.  
So, Tina decides, that she does not need to be particularly helpful tonight.  
If he wants to find any ties between Newt and Dumbledore he might as well look for them elsewhere. 

“Well, if he was, I have no knowledge about it.” Not a lie, but also not the complete truth.  
He frowns at her, pursing his lips in apparent frustration.  
“And you stand by this?”  
Tina leans back in her chair, crosses her arms in front of her chest.  
“Yes, very much.”  
There’s a beat of silence she spends maintaining eye contact with the man opposite of her, until he breaks it.  
“If that is the case, I suppose you can… “

She’s out of her chair and gone before he can finish his sentence.

____

 

(London, 1928)

Newt settles back into his usual day-to-day life almost too easily, partly because his creatures need him to, after all, they do not give much thought to the current political situation, uproar or not, and partly because he needs to maintain some kind of normality to help him remain level-headed, even though it feels forced and at times, out of place, to go on as usual. 

He keeps a careful eye on Theseus too, simply because he thinks, that if there’s ever been a time his brother had needed him, it surely is now.  
Newt is there; standing mere five feet behind him on the podium when they bury Leta with half the Ministry and even more of the Daily Prophet, attending. It all very much reminds him of vultures circling over an especially juicy piece of flesh.  
Afterwards, when Theseus excuses himself from the reception held, out of all places, in the very same location Leta and him would’ve had their wedding feast at, and promptly fails to show up for the next two hours, Newt dutifully goes to pull him out of some dodgy pub in Knockturn Alley in the middle of the night, after trawling half of magical London’s night-time hot-spots. When he finds him he’s so drunk on Firewhiskey he can’t even speak a clear sentence, let alone walk straight. 

Their father, who along with their mother has come to attend the funeral, quite disapprovingly tells him at half past midnight, while he indifferently watches Newt try to steer Theseus through his ground-floor without bumping into too many pieces of furniture on the way, that as a _Scamander_ Theseus should know to hold himself with the utmost composure and dignity, _especially_ in situations such as this, because _Scamanders_ , absolutely do not make a spectacle of themselves, publicly, ever.  
Newt, while carefully manoeuvring his brother’s half-sleeping form onto the sofa, listens, rolls his eyes when he has his back to him and decides to shelve this as yet another matter he and his father will have to disagree on, before, very politely sending him out to join their mother at the hotel they’re staying in.  
In the morning Newt gets up at exactly twenty eight minutes past four purely by habit, to feed the mooncalves, only to discover that Theseus has already done that and left, but not before tacking a note to his doorpost _(Newt, sorry for the inconvenience, won’t happen again, T.)_ and depositing his mail in the centre of the kitchen table. 

Theseus does manage to keep his promise, and Newt is very glad for his own sake, as spending half the night searching for his brother with no idea where to start is definitely not one of his favourite occupations, but more importantly for that of his brother. They maintain quite regular contact afterwards, most of the time its letters because both of them are too busy to find much time for lunch or anything other than a quick hello in passing.  
He feels a little guilty to admit that he enjoys this new dynamic they have found, because it had taken so much time and even more shared pain to find some sort of common ground, but still he allows himself to be happy about it.  
“Leta would’ve liked this very much.” Theseus says once, voice low and hoarse, absentmindedly staring into the fire and Newt agrees and then they toast to her and that is about all they ever talk about her, because Newt fears that his brother and the fragile equilibrium that he is so carefully re-finding for himself might disintegrate at any possible mention of her or the happenings at the rally.  
*

Tina writes quite frequently, and it’s like a breath of fresh air, a welcome distraction each time.  
She has abandoned the _Mr.Scamander_ altogether, and instead addresses him with his first name, which is something he notes with great joy, just like the fact that she, most of the time, ends her letters on _Yours, Tina._

Yours.  
Yours, as in his.

It’s a little thing, and most probably not more than a little conversational flourish, but it still greatly delights him and since that is rare these days, he’ll gladly take it.

What she writes is mostly pragmatic _(Newt, I can’t say much, but investigations are well on their way, and they might want to have a word with you)_ , light and bordering on poetic at times _(It’s almost absurd that even in times as harrowing as this, my New York should be so unabashedly beautiful)_ and very rarely emotional _(I miss my sister very badly, with every breathe that I take and every minute that I am without her; I miss her when I get up in the morning five minutes earlier than necessary solely out of the habit of having to wake her up on time and I miss her when I come home at night, and she’s not there. I miss her, I miss her, I miss her.)._  
From London, Newt can’t do anything other than send her some consoling words _(Dearest Tina, please know that, though your heart may be heavy right now, it won’t be like this forever, it can’t be, for your own sake, and a bit for mine too, as it greatly worries me to know you in such dire spirits...)_ to express his compassion, and in this particular letter he includes a sketch of his Niffler surrounded by his brood, in hopes that it may lighten her mood.

He very much regrets not having sorted things out with her before she left to return to New York.  
To his credit, he had desperately been raking his brain for something, just anything, to say to her, back at the ministry while grouped around a strikingly atrocious flower point, but as usual when faced with this specific kind of time pressure, had come up blank.

_(Farewell? Too little._  
_Stay? Too much._  
_Please? Please, what, exactly?)_

Still, Newt thinks they had found a good kind of rhythm, carefully toing the line between friendship and courtship to a degree they’re both comfortable with, not that he could ever be truly uncomfortable with her.  
*

She comes to visit him in London once, while she’s on a stopover between a finished case somewhere in Ireland and following a trace, leading her to northern Europe.  
It’s winter already and such a cold one, that London is almost completely suffocating under seemingly endless amounts of powdery snow. It could’ve been beautiful, if it didn’t make getting from A to B all the much harder.  
Tina, as it turns out, is quite fond of snow, and respectively Newt is quite fond of her almost childlike enthusiasm and the awed look on her face when she first steps out onto the snow covered side walk and of the way the snowflakes catch in her ebony coloured hair and stay there in the icy cold, like tiny splinters of crystal.  
She meets his brother properly, too, over a cup of tea that she barely touches, assuring him that it’s very lovely, thank you and some easily flowing conversation, and afterwards Theseus ensures him that he finds her to be both absolutely marvellous and completely mental for putting up with him, of all people.

On the second evening of her visit, Newt spends a good amount of gold on a dinner reservation at a gorgeous place down by the river; complete with three-armed candelabras, white floor-length table clothes and a pianist.  
It’s all very much not his usual kind of venue; he feels a bit dressed up, with the mother-of-pearl cufflinks he usually only unearths for weddings and a shirt-collar so stiff, he can barely lower his chin, but Theseus recommends to pull out all the stops, so that’s what he does. Casting a sideways glance at Tina, combined with his general feel of discomfort makes him regret following this particular piece of advice the moment he steps through the door.  
Tina is resplendent, of course, in beaded sapphire blue velvet, but wears a slightly uncomfortable expression on her face, bottom lip caught between her teeth and brows drawn together, whenever she thinks he isn’t looking _(He always is. How could he not?)_ , until Newt leans towards her over the table, puts a reassuring hand to her wrist and tells her that he’d very much like to leave now.

This night is a clear one, crisp and so cold, that her cheeks and nose are tinted bright red when they finally arrive at his place, after a drawn-out stroll along the river, spent with pleasant chatter and her arm linked through his, hand continually opening and closing against the coarse wool of his overcoat.  
They end up on his sofa, facing one another, holding a glass of a heady, dark Bordeaux older than the both of them, each.  
He’s yanked off his bow tie and torn open the first two buttons on his collar first thing after coming through the front door and she’s toed of her shoes; her feet brandishing red imprints around her heels and instep, all in all they’re both much happier here.

“Well, let me tell you, Greta does not like being woken before dawn.” He concludes his recounting of an incident involving the Kelpie two weeks ago, that might’ve cost him an arm should he have been a second slower.  
_(Of course, he does not include the bit about his arm given that; this story up to this point has served very well to make her laugh so nicely.)_  
Newt feels rather lightheaded and almost intoxicated with bliss and excitement to have her here, with him on his sofa, after all these months of writing and longing and wondering, bare feet folded beneath her, head thrown back with laughter, hand clutching her wine glass.  
“I think no one does.” She replies after a while, smiling softly at him, her expression so beautifully warm and soft and unguarded, that he very badly wants to save the image she currently presents, to preserve it, to keep it somewhere close to his heart.  
They fall silent, for a moment, and Newt wonders if she would mind awfully much if he’d reach a hand out to swipe his thumb underneath her eyes, just to feel her lashes flutter against his skin or to trace it over her cupid’s bow, her lips parting on a soft _oh_.  
“Newt.” Tina says suddenly, sitting upright and he tears his gaze from her pretty mouth to make eye contact instead “Can I ask you something?”  
“Everything.” Newt replies instantly, eagerly “Whatever you want to know.”  
“The guy, the last one that interviewed me, he asked about you.” She says slowly, making sure to hold his gaze, and then suddenly, uncharacteristically breaks herself off “Look, Newt, I don’t mean to pry into matters that aren’t mine to care for, and maybe I shouldn’t have brought this…”  
“Tina.” He interjects, gently, because all of sudden, she looks like she could need some encouragement “I said everything, and I meant it.”  
“Did Dumbledore send you to Paris?”

_Frank and straight to the point.  
Much more like her._

Newt leans back slightly to get a clear view of her face to gauge her expression and takes a sip of his wine to buy himself a little time.  
“I…” He starts hesitantly “He did…he did suggest to me that Credence was in Paris and that he’d rather I find him than…” He gestures weakly towards her, implicating _Aurors_ “But in the end I did not go because he told me to, you know, with the travelling ban, that would’ve been an awfully…awfully risky thing to do.”  
Tina seems at first, satisfied by his answer, and then confused “But why did you come then, if you didn’t want to breach the ban?”  
His face feels very hot all of a sudden and he finds it hard to look at her, as she blinks at him, expectantly and there’s something in her expression, eyebrows drawn together and lips parted, something like the barest hint of dawning realization that makes him think that she simply has to know.

For the briefest of moments, it occurs to him, that all of this could go terribly wrong, and his very unhelpful brain rapid-fires all of the ways he could be making a fool of himself in the next twenty seconds. 

He could be misreading the situation.  
He could have misinterpreted her intentions.  
He could have been… _imagining_ things 

Quite certainly he could try to find himself an easy way out, even though he’s very sure that Tina would look through it all the same.  
He could lie, and it would be so very convenient to divert this situation, back to safer grounds, grounds he might be more comfortable at.  
He could make up some convoluted story about another beast to find and sustain, he could plead his own interest in helping Credence.  
He could lie.

_(He asked Theseus for romantic advice once.  
In his memory Theseus is twenty-three, young and self-assured, and he is barely fifteen, and his brother laughs, loud and carefree and says with the confidence only someone who’s never had to ask for help in those matters could have “You’ll have to take the plunge one of those days, Newton.”)_

So he does that.

“Oh, Tina.” Newt says softly and hesitantly raises a hand to smooth his thumb along the arch of her brow, knuckles resting against her cheek, and to his amazement, she releases a stuttering sigh, warm breath washing over his skin, and lets her eyes fall closed “Don’t you know?”  
She leans towards him, and Newt allows his own eyes to close too, because he wants to feel, to cherish, her soft hair between his fingers, both of her hands coming up to frame his jaw, her hands are pleasantly cool against his increasingly heated skin.  
“I think I do.” Tina whispers, in breathless wonder, and then she’s kissing him, or he’s kissing her, he couldn’t be sure, and it’s barely more than a soft, tentative press of her lips against his own, but he can feel her mouth curl into a smile and her hand thread into the hair at the back of his neck and it makes his skin tingle most pleasantly and warmth spread from his head down to the very tips of his toes and he thinks that he’d die a happy man, should the ground beneath them suddenly decide to swallow them whole.  
*  
On the last night before her departure, she tells him, almost casually, that Macusa is sending her and a handful of other Aurors to investigate and eventually twat a nest of Grindelwald’s followers, somewhere north of Helsinki.  
The thing is, he wants to be brave and he _does_ have trust in her and her abilities, but the thought of this alone, makes him sick to the stomach, makes him think of Leta, of Grindelwald’s fiend fire and what her perishing in it had done to his brother.

“Now, don’t worry, please.” Tina says, clearly reading the look on his face for what it is, and he looks up to meet her eyes and then takes her hand, resting on the wooden top of the table between them, turns her wrist upwards and presses his thumb lightly over the patch of pink scar tissue, right on her pulse point where he can feel her heart beat quicken “You have to excuse me, Tina, I just can’t bear the thought of you getting hurt.”  
“You’re one to talk.” She replies softly and sets her coffee down to touch the faded scar stretching from just below his right ear down to his collarbone. His skin warms where she touches him.  
“My Nundu.” Newt murmurs, more to himself, remembering this particular disagreement they had had; while absentmindedly raising his hand to hold hers against his skin, and then ads louder “It’s different, still, because my creatures don’t mean to hurt me.”  
“Hey.” She says quietly, letting her hand fall away “I can’t promise you that I won’t get hurt, but I will promise to take good care of myself, and you, in turn, gotta promise to not get too worked up over it alright?”  
It’s partly her teasing and partly an honest plea.  
He doesn’t say anything in fear that his nerves might end up betraying him, but keeps looking at their joined hands.  
“Newt.” She intones a little sternly, touching the tip of her boot lightly to his shin underneath the table, to gain his attention “I’ll be fine, you’ll see.”  
“Yes, yes, alright.” He allows, looks up to smile at her quickly, and then decides to change the subject instead to the freshly hatched Fwooper fledglings he discovered just a day ago.  
It’s difficult for him, to always know her in a state of constant danger, and he can’t imagine that to ever be different, but in the end, he can’t stop this war from coming, try as he might and her profession will always be an integral part of her, of what makes her so dear to him.  
Neither he nor she can know what time may bring, but he supposes there’s enough time to worry about those things tomorrow.

Worrying, after all, means you suffer twice.

_(They end up calling the Fwoopers Betsy, Juliette and Calliope, and Tina keeps her hand in his all evening, a warm, fond smile always present on her face and he is just happy to be allowed to look as much as he wants._

_It’s quite perfect, how it is, really.)_  
*

There’s war raging all over Europe for far too many years afterwards, claiming far too many lives and demanding sacrifices far too big.  
Terrible as everything is, Tina is most grateful, for even the tiniest of good things, each pan of freshly baked pie Jacob brings when visiting and each new-born mooncalf and each letter from Theseus, proving him to be well and alive. 

_(She is grateful for finding that home; to her is a person and not a place, grateful that she has someone to keep her afloat when all she wants to do is sink.)_

She never really leaves London again, except for work, after returning from Finland, because she finds it much easier to cling to Newt and the warmth and comfort he, with his crooked smile and case full of beasts, represents to her, than to return to New York, where nothing seems to be waiting for her anymore.  
It’s not easy to live in a time like this, but it’s good not to have to do it alone. 

_(There’s a day when Tina wakes in a sun-lit room, in a cottage on top of a grassy hill, somewhere in Dorset, because the Niffler is tugging at her left hand and after inspecting it, discovers a slim gold band with an uncut diamond on her ring finger._  
_She thinks she should be jubilantly happy and excited and positively giddy, but instead, she just feels…calm and extraordinarily content, which is fitting, really, since at the very core, calm and content, is what he had always made her feel._  
_She finds him in the kitchen, with his feet bare and his suspenders lowered, and he stills for just a second, before turning around, to smile at her hesitantly, the tips of his ears very pink._  
Tina returns his smile and just nods.)  
* 

They get married on a brilliantly sunny day in late December, under the willow behind the cottage, the snow glistening around them like countless fragments of shattered glass.  
The vicar pronounces them husband and wife in front of all their loved ones, Jacob cries and Theseus claps loudest, and they kiss and there’s tears shared between them, neither of them can be sure to claim as theirs.  
Afterwards, when they pull apart, Newt rests his forehead against hers and pulls her hand upwards gently to rest it underneath his suit jacket and over his beating heart and mummers, lowly, voice rough and eyes still wet with tears “It’s yours. I think it was always meant to be yours.” 

_There’s a war going on, still, right in front of their doorstep, but on this day she couldn’t have cared any less.  
*_


End file.
